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| T/F Though himself a French speaker, William the Conqueror attempted to learn English. |
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| T/F Our textbook concludes that there was no knowledge at all of French among the common English-speaking classes in the post-Norman Conquest era. |
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| T/F The French language remained the language of the upper class for about only 50 years after the Norman Conquest of 1066. |
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| What was the most important factor that promoted the use of French in the nobility in England after the conquest? |
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Definition
| Close contact with France and French culture on the continent |
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| T/F The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is evidence that English survived for a long time in the monasteries. |
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| What are factors that lead to the reestablishment of English after the conquest? |
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Definition
1) Black Death
2) Hundred Years' War
3) Rise of the merchant class |
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| What is not a factor that lead to the reestablishment of English after the conquest? |
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Definition
| The lessening influence of the Scandinavians |
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| T/F The 15th English literature is often described as the creative period because Chaucer's poetry inspired others to explore new forms and uses of language. |
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| In what year was English reintroduced into the courts? |
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| T/F French became the language of culture in Europe by the 13th century. |
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| In what century did English replace Latin and French as the method of written communication in England? |
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| T/F The literature that survived into the from the early Middle English period (1150-1250) is almost exclusively religious. |
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| T/F The Cursor Mundi is an important example of a medieval English "bestiary." |
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| T/F In the 13th century, Norman French began to replace Central French as the privileged dialect in France. |
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| Through whose writings do we know that English noblemen had their children learn French as a second language by the mid-13th century? |
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Term
| A second stream of foreigners entered England after Henry's marriage to Eleanor in what year? |
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| What explains the rise of East Midland as the privileged dialect in England? |
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Definition
1) Oxford and Cambridge
2) Spoken in London
3) Central location
**NOT that most clergy came from this district |
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Term
| What do we mean when we describe Middle English as the "period of dialects" in English history? |
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Definition
| There was no literary standard so most manuscripts were written in local dialects. |
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Term
| In Middle English, the final "-e" ending is most closely associated with which part of speech? |
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Term
| Who wrote that "ther is so gret diversite in Englisshe and in writyng of oure tonge"? |
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| T/F In Modern English, some verbs are still transitioning from strong to weak and weak to strong. |
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Definition
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Term
| The loss of inflectional endings in Middle English wasn't bad in what part of speech? |
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| T/F It was fairly clear by Middle English how plural nouns would be developed. |
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| T/F A strong verb is one that undergoes a change to the root vowel in its transition to the past tense. |
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| T/F The text views the loss of grammatical gender in English as a negative thing. |
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Term
| From where do the "th-" forms of personal pronouns come? |
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Term
| The "most extensive and most important treatise on English spelling" was written by who? |
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Term
| 16th century language purists objected to what three groups of "strange words?" |
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Definition
1) Inkhorn terms
2) Oversea language
3) Chaucerisms |
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Term
| What date is the "convenient" beginning of Modern English? |
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Definition
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Term
| T/F Before the Renaissance, most Greek words entered English directly from Arabic. |
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Term
| T/F The Great Vowel Shift affected the pronunciation of short vowels in Modern English. |
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| T/F The Protestant Reformation called for "vernacular literature" in English. |
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Term
| The introduction of Latin into English vocabulary during the Renaissance is called what? |
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Definition
| Latin of the Fourth Period |
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Term
| Which word has "unhistorical" spelling, getting its orthographical representation by analogy? |
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| Modern English spelling was essentially fixed by which year? |
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| T/F The double comparative and double superlative is relatively common in the writings of Shakespeare. |
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| Modals used to be fully functioning verbs in Anglo-Saxon times, but they disappeared in singular use because of changes in inflectional use. Since they lost the information provided by inflections, they could not function on their own anymore. Now, they function to add meaning to verbs. The existing modals are will/would, can/could, shall/should, may/might, must. |
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Term
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Definition
| Inkhorn terms were words borrowed from other languages in early Modern English that were long and generally unnecessary. The controversy surrounding this type of word borrowing is the first instance of language conservatives complaining about new words entering English. Critics such as John Cheke, Thomas Chaloner, and Thomas Wilson opposed the uses of inkhorn terms |
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| Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, Norman French began to lose its hegemony imposed upon England because of the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, and the rise of the merchant class. Thus, as we know from the writings of Walter of Bibbesworth, English noble children were often instructed in both English and French, and by the 13th century, France was taught as a second language. Even at the beginning of the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror sought to learn English to speak the language of his conquered island. However, bilingualism didn't erase French influence; the age of bilingualism brought in the highest period of French borrowing in English linguistic history. |
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Term
| Short ID: East Midland Dialect |
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Definition
| The East Midland Dialect became the standard English dialect in the Middle English period. The dialect took precedent because of three major factors. Firstly, Cambridge and Oxford, two major educational institutions, were located in the region. Secondly, London, the commercial and eventual political capitol of England, was also located in the region. Lastly, the central location between the northern and southern districts made it a happy medium between the two extremes of dialect. |
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Term
| Short ID: The Great Vowel Shift |
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Definition
| The Great Vowel Shift is the change of long vowels in which they began to be pronounced with greater elevation of the tongue and closing of the mouth. As a result, English adopted the unorthodox use of vowel symbols. The vowel system stayed fixed, so the pronunciation of words does not always match up with their spelling. |
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Term
| Short ID: Vowel Reduction |
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Definition
| Because of the character of unaccented syllables, vowels in unaccented syllables tend to weaken and then eventually disappear. While the original spelling is generally retained, most pronunciations do not include the unaccented vowel. This can be seen in the dialectal pronunciation of "window" as "winder." Even when the vowel has been restored in formal speech, the weakened form is generally apparent in informal speech and in the dialects. |
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Term
| Short ID: Continental Vowels |
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Definition
| Continental vowels are the original pronunciation of long vowels in Middle and Old English before the Great Vowel Shift. These long vowels were pronounced in their "continental" value during Chaucer's time. For instance, "a" was pronounced like it was in "father" rather than "make" and "e" pronounced like the "e" in "there" or "a" in "mate" but not like "ee" in "meet." Continental vowels lost their pronunciation int eh Great Vowel Shift. |
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| Thomas Wyatt was a 16th century English poet who is credited with introducing the Italian sonnet into English poetry. He mainly translated the works of Petrarch into English, which aided in his transferral of the Italian form into English works. He is also a noted master of iambic tetrameter. His introduction of the sonnet influenced the style of almost every English poet who came after him, including Shakespeare. |
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| Paleography is the study of old handwriting and antique characters. In Old and Middle English, eth and thorn were the two most popular orthographic symbols that didn't translate into Modern English. Paleography allows us to experience and discover old symbols that are no longer in use. |
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Term
| How was the nature of Latin borrowings into English different in the early modern period from the OE and ME period? |
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Definition
| In the early modern period, Latin words were borrowed in order to enrich the language, as opposed to the Old English and Middle English periods, in which Latin words were borrowed because there were no existing words in the English language that could translate the ideas existing in Latin texts. |
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Term
| What do you think was the most significant syntactic change to occur during the transition from Middle English to Modern English? |
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Definition
| The most significant syntactic change is the development of the s-plural because it established the norm of pluralizing nouns. |
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Term
| What caused the Great Vowel Shift to occur? |
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Definition
| The return of the prestige of English and the rise of the middle class led to a shirking off of continental quality in vowel pronunciation and shifted the vowel pronunciation to the modern pronunciation. |
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Term
| Why does East Midlands contain elements of both northern and southern dialects? |
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Definition
| Since East Midlands is located in the central portion of the Island, it picks up traits from both the conservative elements of the southern dialects and the radical elements of the northern dialects. |
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Term
| In light of changes in the early modern period, how could you explain the peculiarities of modern English spelling? |
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Definition
| Modern English spelling is peculiar because the Great Vowel Shift caused the changing of pronunciation in English without greatly effecting the orthography, and thus modern pronunciations are matched up with preserved spellings, causing there to be a peculiar mismatch in spelling and pronunciation. |
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Term
| What does it mean to say that people began to acquire a consciousness of language in the early modern era? |
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Definition
| English critics began to realize that English was a fully formed language that did not need to borrow every word and adopt every concept from foreign languages, which caused them to be conscious of changes in vocabulary and orthography. |
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